A Jasper O'Farrell Day in Sebastopol
Having just published a biography of Jasper O'Farrell, a friend suggested the Sebastopol City Council should enact a Jasper O'Farrell Day to recognize one of West County's original ranchers. In the 1850s the Irish surveyor held the Canada de Jonive, Annaly Ranch. O'Farrell's ranch included all the land from the present Jonive Road just east of Freestone to the eastern edge of Bodega. The title of this just released book is Blood Will Tell Divvying Up Early California from Col. Juan Bautista de Anza to Jasper O'Farrell. The publisher is ClearSpace. A remarkable individual and modern cartographer O'Farrell mapped San Francisco (1847) as well as Benicia, Sonoma and Stockton. He was bilingual, Spanish and English; was John Sutter's Quartermaster in the Micheltorena War (1845); and stood up for California's northern California Indians. He was far more than the usual money-hungry 49er in laying out Market Street as the primary boulevard envisioning an "Empire City" here.
O'Farrell (1817-1875) surveyed many northern and southern California ranches from his arrival in Sausalito in 1843 until about 1859 when he turned his attention to a second career in state politics. He was a lifelong loyal Democrat who made a positive impart on California through his charitable gifts of land and money as well as environmental preservation. He donated the land and materials for St. Teresa of Avila Church in Bodega. The Bohemian Grove of redwoods would not exist today had it not been for O'Fattell's stewardship and land management. He served as Sonoma County's state senator, 1859-1860.The book is available for purchase at Copperfields Books at either the Montgomery Village store or Petaluma store. As the author I will be appearing and signing books at the Copperfields Books store in Petaluma on Saturday, May 16th from 1:30 to 3:30. Everyone who reads this is cordially invited to hear readings from this work.
tree 14, Frank Baumgardner
Our community's back pages
Thank you for writing this, Frank! It sounds like a fascinating journey into the back pages of Sonoma County's history. I am sometimes pleasantly surprised to read that there were courageous souls in the early part of our nation's and state's history who stood up for the rights of indigenous people, and our environment.
I am looking forward to buying your book and doing a little local time travel :thumbsup:
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Posted in reply to the post by tree14:
Having just published a biography of Jasper O'Farrell, a friend suggested the Sebastopol City Council should enact a Jasper O'Farrell Day to recognize one of West County's original ranchers. ...
